I Love My Sister With All My Heart

Good breakfast.

It must have been when I was about six or seven. I had just moved from Granny's Toa Payoh flat to the kampong house and I was having a difficult time settling into the family. Until today I still feel very much like an outsider. The only person whom I talked to then was my sister. Two years older than me, she knew everything. It was Sis who advised me against stepping on the main hall threshold in case it angered the deceased ancestors. She taught me to climb guava trees and pick the sweetest guavas to bite. From lighting evening mosquito coils to riding adult bicycles, she knew it all.

One morning, while the sky was still dark, she woke me up to tell me to prepare breakfast. She boiled the water and made some scrambled eggs to be eaten with tasty gardenia bread (which was a luxury). We drank hot milo. We called it 好早餐 (Good Breakfast). And it was done while the adults were still asleep. It was truly a joy savoured by two of us who felt like little princesses having their morning tea, never mind that we were in our pyjamas and it was still dark and there were mosquitoes out too for their meals.

This was way back in 1977, before we even heard of McDonald's Big Breakfast. It is truly a wonder where Sis got that idea from. But truth be told, she has always been much better at these things. I could not for the life of me get the hang of making a good cup of coffee or tea. I grew up quite inept at cooking. It was much later that I realise that making a bowl of noodles could make someone happy and satisfied. I understand much later that cooking for others is an expression of love and care. It is not just to keep the body alive for it to do its work. It is a sacred act of nurturing and giving sustenance. And that in itself is worthy.

Now, almost forty years later, I often have breakfast in a rush so as to get to work early. Those early morning Good Breakfasts with Sis still come back to my mind often. And they make me smile.